The carbon price legislation was passed by Federal Parliament yesterday.
The price will apply next financial year, from 1 July 2012.
It is now crucial that your business thoroughly prepare for the carbon price.
What should we do now?
Key steps include:
- Review the impacts on your business and how your contracts deal with them. Your contracts are crucial for how carbon prices are passed through to you by your suppliers and how you can pass them onto your customers.
- Ensure that greenhouse and energy information gathering and reporting is optimal.
- Ensure that disclosure obligations are met. Consider what you need to tell the market and your stakeholders about how you will be impacted.
- Consider any regulatory restrictions and plan for economic and access regulator discussion.
- Consider the implications for your financing.
- Consider the use of offsets to reduce your financial exposure to the carbon price.
- Investigate options to reduce emissions and to improve efficiency.
- Identify whether government funding is available. Various assistance packages have been announced.
- Make sure marketing is not misleading or deceptive.
- Review operational approvals in respect of carbon issues.
- Consider the industrial relations issues if staff will be affected.
We can assist you with these matters and would be pleased to discuss with you the carbon price and your options.
Roll back unlikely
The Opposition has committed to ‘roll back’ the carbon price if it wins government in the future. However, a roll back would be very difficult and appears unlikely, or at least not for some time (meaning businesses must still prepare for the carbon price).
